Pueblo West Cyclones come back from 11 down to edge Cañon City Tigers

Craig Overholt makes a layup during the Cañon City basketball game Friday against the Pueblo West Cyclones in the Tiger Dome. (Brandon Hopper / Daily Record)

Before the game, Pueblo West coach Bobby Tyler stressed to his team that it was time to grow up.

Freshman David Simental sure did, especially when there were only 2 seconds left on the game clock.

Simental drilled two free throws in front of a noisy Tiger Dome to seal a 53-51, come-from-behind win against the Cañon City Tigers in a South-Central League game Friday.

The Tigers led by 11 early in the third quarter, but the Cyclones' hot shooters missed only two shots. They tied the score late in the period after a 9-0 run. It could've been much worse, but Tigers senior Michael Lennox had three big buckets to minimize the bleeding.

Michael Lennox (-)

“They would just penetrate and drive, or just kick, or even just step up and hit that shot if they had to,” Lennox said. “... There's no excuses, we didn't play good enough D.”

Down by two, Tigers senior Craig Overholt tied the game with less than 1 minute to play in the fourth quarter. Simental got to the line after being fouled and made the most of the opportunity.

Pueblo West's run in the third quarter was even more impressive considering its lack of success in the second quarter. It made just one shot and one free throw the entire 8 minutes, which helped Canon City grow its lead.

“We work so much on getting the ball in (David) Arrieta's hands, and in the third quarter we said, ‘Go frickin' play basketball' and we let some other guys get involved and that really helped,” Tyler said.

After Simental's free throws with 2 seconds, the Tigers took the ball off a timeout with a full length of the court to travel. Logan Nethercot launched a pass to Gunner Javernick who couldn't quite come down with it, and the ball went out of bounds.

Off the ensuing Pueblo West throw in, Nethercot stole the ball with about 1 second left, but couldn't corral it cleanly in order to get off a shot.

“We had to be cerebral in the fourth quarter. We ran out of timeouts, we had different guys guarding the ball, we had to think and move on our feet and that helped us grow up,” Tyler said. “I told them they can't use the youth card anymore, they grew up.”

Overholt and Gunner Javernick each scored 11 points. Wesley Jaynes had nine and Lennox had eight.

The Tigers fell to 8-10 overall and are 1-4 after the first round of the S-CL. Pueblo West moved to 7-10 and 2-3. The two teams look destined to battle for the fourth and fifth spots. The fourth-place finisher gets the last of the S-CL's automatic bids in the state tournament while the No. 5 hopes for a wild-card berth.

“We have a whole second round to go so our goal is to get to about 11 wins or so, and if we do that I think well improve (our chances on) getting into the postseason,” Tigers coach Greg Baxter said.

The Tigers' next game will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Tiger Dome when Pueblo Central (11-6, 2-2) comes to town. Central beat Cañon City by 16 in the first round of league play.

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